Electrostatic discharges (ESD) can severely damage semiconductor components. Therefore, ESD protective concepts are realized in most semiconductor components nowadays. The ESD protective components integrated in the chip define a current path via which the ESD current can flow without causing damage.
In the case of high-speed data transmission lines, in particular, the requirement exists of ensuring an ESD protection up to 15 kV without the signal waveform being distorted to an excessively great extent. For this purpose, the protective element must have a particularly low capacitance.
Known ESD protective structures have structures that are complicated and have inaccurate producability on account of the high substrate thickness for the diode arrangement. The dopant diffusion through the complete substrate thickness leads to inaccuracies and a high space requirement owing to the lateral outdiffusion that likewise takes place. The high substrate thickness brings about a high resistance, which adversely affects the performance of the protective structure.